Dallas Fuel weave Echo into their style in 3-0 sweep of Washington - The Dallas Morning News

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Everyone on the Dallas Fuel knew what was coming in the 2020 season. The Dallas Morning News sat down with three of the Fuel’s new Korean players on January 29 and asked them how the Fuel were looking in the preseason. Jung “Closer” Wonsik and Kim “DoHa” Dongha smiled and looked at the third player sitting between them, Jang “Decay” Gui-un.

Closer pointed at Decay.

“Carry machine,” Closer said.

Flash forward to Saturday afternoon and the Fuel picked up their second 3-0 sweep of the season against the Washington Justice (2-9) -- Another conclusive win during a 4-1 streak dating back to April 5.

Every win is important for a Fuel team that just reached the top 10 in the Overwatch League standings for the first time all season. But it’s how the wins have come to fruition that have made the Fuel look more impressive.

Dallas hadn’t practiced the games’ new hero, Echo, at all until the past week. The fresh damage hero has proven lethal in damage compositions, and the Fuel had to catch up.

“To be honest, the first two days of scrims practicing Echo were a struggle for us,” Closer said via a team translator. “As the support and the rest of the team died to Echo a couple of times, we actually got a hang of how to deal with the hero.”

Fuel head coach Aaron “Aero” Atkins said the practices weren’t bad, but the Fuel just had to learn how to deal with, and use, the new hero before playing Washington. DoHa was given the keys to Echo on Saturday, and he was effective in an overall team win. But Washington wasn’t able to handle Decay on Tracer. DoHa was causing too much disruption and Fuel Winston player Noh “Gamsu” Youngjin was making too much space for the Justice to get a beat on Decay.

The carry machine returned, and he even had a pocket from Closer.

“I remember calling Decay a ‘carry machine and I still stand by those words,” Closer said. “Today’s Tracer probably shined even brighter because of the armor I gave.”

While it was some playful banter from Closer, his words represented the Fuel’s team synergy rising at the right time. Dallas equalized its record right before facing the Philadelphia Fusion (9-1), and did so in a match they didn’t play perfectly.

The Fuel made plenty of mistakes. Aero made that clear on Twitter after the match, but he was still pleased with what his team looked like when not everything went their way in a match with new variables like Echo.

GGs @washjustice

3-0 win is nice, Paris was pretty sloppy 😠. We'll clean it up for next week though. Happy with how fast we were able to incorporate Echo. I'm super proud of our team.#BurnBlue #playwithfire

— Aaron Atkins (@Aero_OW) May 2, 2020

“Overall I think it says that our baseline is good. It’s reassuring and points towards general improvement that even on a poor day we can 3-0 a team,” Aero said. “Obviously the Justice is in a rut right now but I think it still says a lot about where our baseline is.”

The Fuel never needed to adjust their composition to deal with the Justice. They were comfortable able to force their own style on their opponent. Decay was enabled because of that. Other than a few moments on Ashe, Decay was able to play Tracer for the majority of the map, and the Justice were doomed in handling that and DoHa on Echo.

“That’s part of the reason we have Decay on Tracer,” Aero said. “He just in general does a lot of damage. So we have options of following up on Decay’s damage and can free up more space. The whole composition opens up a lot of avenues.”

Decay and DoHa were able to make their plays because of their tanks and supports, though. Lucas “NotE” Meissner was a driving force on Dva and Sigma throughout the match and made map-defining plays by countering the Washington ultimates.

That’s a product of individual commitment.

“NotE has been working so unbelievably hard to improve,” Aero said. “I think losing to the Gladiators, for him, was one of those moments where he felt ‘I don’t want this again’ and he started grinding so hard. Not that he wasn’t before but he just took it to another level.”

That kind of work ethic will be necessary for the Fuel to take the next step in their rise during OWL play. They won’t be able to get away with beating up on the bottom-feeding teams forever.

Eventually, they will have to take down a team like the Fusion, and that opportunity is next door.

“They are a really strong team but I wouldn’t count us out of it,” Fuel support player William “Crimzo” Hernandez said on the OWL YouTube broadcast. “We are confident and coming in hot. Even though they are hard competition I think we can win.”

On May 10, the Fuel can join the best OWL has to offer.

Find more Fuel stories from The Dallas Morning News here.

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Dallas Fuel weave Echo into their style in 3-0 sweep of Washington - The Dallas Morning News
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